


sparks will fly

by screechfox



Series: Author's Favourites [8]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Buried Alive, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Extremely Dubious Consent, Fix-It of Sorts, Other, Possessive Behavior, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 06:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21387910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: There is something very pleasing about mapping Mike’s scar with his fingers, Michael reflects. It presses the sharp edges of its false skin to his pale, ordinary flesh, matching every branching pathway that marks him. Michael fancies it can feel electricity humming, vicious, below his skin.“Oh, dear Michael,” it croons. “It seems you’ve lost your way.”(For the prompt: Before Mike belonged to the Vast he was the Spiral’s, as Michael loves to remind him.)
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew/Michael (The Magnus Archives)
Series: Author's Favourites [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829980
Comments: 26
Kudos: 157
Collections: Rusty Kink





	sparks will fly

**Author's Note:**

> i take an editing break on the later chapters of the jon/mike fic, and i write this, because i am nothing if not the truest parody of myself
> 
> michael uses it/its pronouns in this fic!

There is something very pleasing about mapping Mike’s scar with his fingers, Michael reflects. It presses the sharp edges of its false skin to his pale, ordinary flesh, matching every branching pathway that marks him. Michael fancies it can feel electricity humming, vicious, below his skin.

“Oh, dear Michael,” it croons. “It seems you’ve lost your way.”

Mike’s eyes are the defiant brightness of flickering lightning. He doesn’t say a word — sensible, really, since Michael’s fingers would probably cut his throat if he tried. How boring, though. Michael is an excellent conversationalist.

They’re falling, of course. The swooping sensation in its stomach — or the part of its anatomy most closely aligned to the stomach — is a novel thing, and Michael graciously allows Mike to indulge in the pointless comfort of a cloudless sky. Madness is not bound to any one location, after all, and the endless blue is a mind-bending impossibility Michael enjoys.

It brings another hand up to card through Mike’s hair, doing its very best parody of a soothing caretaker. It likes being friendly, even if its friends so often seem to perish.

“It is a shame, really. Perhaps if things had been different, you could have avoided all this unpleasantness. Ah, well, such is life, isn’t it?”

When Mike opens his mouth to speak, Michael presses its fingers closer to his skin. He lets out a low whine of pain, eyes flashing in a delightful mixture of terror and anger. 

(So similar to the Archivist, this one, but the games they play will have very different ends.)

“Wh—” Mike can’t even get his first word out, interrupted by his own fallible human agony. Crimson seeps from underneath Michael’s touch as Mike’s throat shifts. Michael had been half-expecting him to bleed lightning, but blood is equally acceptable.

“Use your words,” it instructs, caressing his cheek with its palm.

“What— do you mean?” Mike’s voice is strained, but admirably even-toned. 

“Who’s to say that I mean anything? I am not in the habit of meaning anything at all.”

Michael laughs, and the sound makes Mike flinch, blood beginning to trickle from his nose. It is Michael’s nature to prevaricate, of course, but it decides to take pity, just this once.

“I mean that you’re buried. Not Buried, precisely, although I suppose any confinement must feel like the worst of Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe to one who serves your master.”

Mike’s breaths grow shallower, and Michael tightens its fingers around his throat. It has never met anyone with such a fetching scar. Perhaps it should have been more artistic when it left its mark on the Archivist. A fractal would look very striking on his skin, and the Eye would  _ abhor _ it.

“Did you not remember?”

By the horror in Mike’s eyes, it’s clear he did not. Michael isn’t inclined to speculate on why exactly his mind has played this trick on him; it just savours the taste of his fear. That claustrophobic self-delusion dances through all the impossible geometries of Michael’s being.

“I’m afraid you can’t escape It-Is-Not-What-It-Is forever. Madness is a tenacious thing.”

“No,” Mike says, but it’s clear he’s uncertain. 

There is a smudge of mud against his forehead that was not there before. They are still falling, but the walls are closing in. Michael leans across Mike so the soil doesn’t choke him. 

Where Michael reopened his scar, blood drips slowly down his face, and Michael runs fingertips along the cut until Mike hisses. The fractal extends far beyond flesh, and Michael is quite tempted to keep opening and opening until Mike can do nothing but submit to the Spiral’s hold on his being. He could be something quite breathtaking, if only he gave in. In the hungry press of earth, Michael considers its options. It has never been very decisive.

It could kill Mike. Very easily, in fact. It could do worse, and leave Mike underground, too weak to free himself from his torment. But Michael can sympathise with being trapped. It doesn’t want to leave him in this cage of dirt and stone. He will be more interesting when allowed to roam.

It would be difficult to open a door underground, but not impossible — or rather, it would be impossible, and that is exactly why Michael can do it. It is just a question of where to lead him. He will find the constricting madness of the corridors deeply unpleasant. Michael smiles again.

“Whatever you want, you’re not getting,” Mike says. His voice is lower now that Michael has stopped wounding him, but he is no less panicked. If he isn’t careful, he’ll use up all his air.

Michael presses a palm to his blood-slick throat, feeling him swallow at the pressure.

“But what if I want to save you?”

Mike manages to summon a tired laugh, and Michael frowns. It strokes its hand across his scar again, wiping away his distrust and replacing it with shuddering pain. Through the dark, his eyes gleam with an echo of that lightning, though he’s clearly weaker than before, poor thing.

Yes, it decides. It wants to save Mike.

“I can set you free,” it sing-songs. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Mike stares up at him. It might be hatred in his eyes, buried underneath layers of resignation.

“I don’t believe you,” Mike says. He’s too clever to trust the Twisting Deceit, though Michael has no intent to do anything more than obfuscate the truth. Outright lies are so often boring.

“And?” Michael lets the earth shift around them until it weighs Mike down. His breath turns shallow with panic, though Michael obligingly presses its palm over his mouth and nose so he doesn’t choke. His eyes have turned desperate, darting from left to right, up and down, sweetly hopeless. “I could easily leave you here. I assure you, no one else is coming for you.” 

It can feel the movement of Mike’s lips against its palm. It suspects he wants to bite in some instinctive retaliation, but he knows better than to consume unknown substances. Besides, Michael’s proclamation engenders a fresh wave of terror in him; with significant struggle against the heavy dirt, he moves his hand up to grasp at Michael’s wrist, keeping it in place.

“I won’t ask anything in return,” Michael says. “I swear on, hm, my heart. How does that sound?”

Mike makes a sound of resigned agreement. For all their commonalities, he is more sensible than the Archivist — he knows when is the correct time to give in.

“Excellent.”

Michael hums a Shepard tone as it considers how, exactly, it is going to pull Mike from the soil’s grasp. Given the confined space, some abstraction will be required.

“All you need to do is open the door,” Michael murmurs.

It smiles at Mike, gently tugging its hand from his grip as it leans downwards. Before the earth can rush in to suffocate him, Michael presses its lips to his. A mouth is an opening is a door, after all, and some would argue that Michael’s door is a mouth in turn.

Mike jerks like he’s been shocked. He tastes of dirt and blood and the upper layers of the atmosphere, all thin air and vertigo. The dizziness is pleasant, and Michael is happy to reciprocate. Mike’s eyes go unfocused, and he makes a sound of pure desperate need. Michael laughs against his mouth, feeling how it resonates between them.

The earth parts for Michael easily as it shifts a hand to the back of Mike’s neck, urging him upwards into the kiss. This is up to Mike, now. Michael is just the door.

Mike is delirious, of course. Michael’s touch frequently has that effect, and they have been in close proximity for quite some time now. It is— gratifying. Frustrating, given what Michael is trying to achieve, but gratifying.

Michael pulls him impossibly closer. Mike’s eyes flutter shut, lashes stuck together with soil. 

It doesn’t take long for Mike to yield, lips parting on a breath that tastes of ozone. That acrid-tang capitulation is all Michael needs. One moment, they are entombed together, and the next, Mike is tumbling head-first through a vertical stretch of corridor. Never let it be said that Michael is not accommodating of the needs of others.

Mike curses, but when Michael peers out of the mirrors, there’s something of euphoria to his face. The earth has left stains like bruises on his skin, but those will fade. The Spiral’s mark — Michael’s mark — will remain etched on his skin forever.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me at [screechfoxes](https://screechfoxes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! have a good day!


End file.
